Euromoney’s deals of the year for 2013 show that, despite prolonged periods of market uncertainty, smart issuers and their advisers managed to get some remarkable things done.

Liberty Global now dominates cable with takeover of Virgin Media.

While the Twitter float was news across the world, another of Euromoney’s deals of the year took place in a far more esoteric corner of the market. It is not often that a structured-finance transaction attracts almost universal praise from competitors across the market, but Freddie Mac’s Structured Agency Credit Risk (STACR) did just this in June last year. And in many ways its impact is far greater than that of the much more discussed Twitter deal.

Initial public offerings in Hong Kong during the first half of last year were something of a novelty.

This deal – led by BTG Pactual after an aborted attempt by Barclays the year before – was the first truly project finance structured bond issued in Brazil. It was also the first debenture to be distributed pursuant to rule 144a/RegS in the international market and the first with a final maturity of 15 years (the previous maximum tenor was 12 years). Despite facing strong volatility and sharp deterioration in market conditions (rise in interest rates, change in Brazil’s rating outlook and the prospect of Fed stimulus tapering), Rodovias do Tiete was able to place fully the R$1.065 billion ($440 million) transaction – facilitated by the firm underwriting commitment provided by the lead and co-bookrunners. The volatility in the markets was of consequence: in the same week BNDESPar and Iguatemi cancelled their debenture and real-estate asset-backed securities (CRI) transactions, respectively.

After a lousy 2012 for Brazilian equities, followed by an unpromising start to 2013 and a deterioration in investor sentiment towards Brazil’s macroeconomic environment, it was perhaps surprising that the world’s biggest IPO of the year was from Brazil. And the spin-off of BB Seguridade – Banco do Brasil’s insurance division – was also one of the best-performing IPOs. Proof, if it were needed, that deals that are priced and marketed well succeed in Latin America’s largest market.

As one of the region’s most dynamic sectors, the telecommunications industry in Africa is highly competitive. But in Nigeria – the continent’s second-largest economy – MTN Nigeria’s recent syndicated deal has given the telecommunications giant the edge over its peers.

Frontier markets are in vogue and there are few markets less tapped than Iraq. It is perhaps fitting, then, that in February 2013 Iraq produced the biggest IPO in the Gulf region since the 2008 global financial crisis: the $1.2 billion listing of mobile phone firm Asiacell.

When it launched in March, this was the largest equity sale of the year, popping healthily on its first day.

On top of the Aldar-Sorouh merger, the financing of the second phase of Emirates Aluminium (Emal) added to Abu Dhabi and the UAE’s resurgent confidence in 2013.

In a landmark deal on November 6 2013, Transnet, a state-owned freight-logistics company, became the first South African company to issue a rand-denominated bond on the international capital markets.

In 2010, with questions surrounding how Rwanda could fund costly, large-scale projects including a convention centre and national carrier RwandAir, policymakers were forced to look for innovative ways to raise cash.

Despite the emergence of signs of recovery across the region, central and eastern Europe saw surprisingly little in the way of eye-catching deal flow in 2013. Activity in both M&A and equity capital markets remained subdued. The bond market feeding frenzy in the first half of the year produced some big transactions, but was short on innovation and complexity.

The largest integrated oil and gas producer in Indonesia is government owned and is also the de facto owner of all oil and gas reserves across the country.

Chapter 11 bankruptcy is never a cheering experience, but in Arcapita’s case it has created an important precedent for the Middle East, where – even after the crises of 2008 and 2009 – restructurings have been extensions of loans, largely because of undeveloped local bankruptcy laws.

Abu Dhabi has regained confidence since Aldar and Sorouh’s merger. Real estate and equity indices have risen. There has been a surge in new deals from state investment fund Mubadala, the biggest Aldar shareholder (a position that in part led Mubadala to a loss in 2010, because of fair-value write-downs).

Vedanta and its bookrunners gave the market a lesson in how to get a deal done in volatile times both through its opportunistic timing and the deal’s execution.

Twitter set an IPO landmark.

EdF changed the hybrid game.

There was no shortage of bond issuance from emerging Europe in the early part of 2013 before tapering fears set in. While deal sizes and volumes hit record levels, however, innovation was thin on the ground.

The sale of HSBC Bank Panama to Bancolombia was one of the largest M&A deals of the year and was transformative to the financial services industry in the fastest-growing economy in Latin America. The deal value was $2.1 billion based on estimated 2012 price to book value of 3.0x and 2012 estimated P/E of 16.9x. HSBC Panama was the second-largest bank in Panama, with a 17% market share in loans, 16% in deposits and 5% in insurance premiums. With the acquisition, Bancolombia adds total assets of $7.6 billion, deposits of $5.8 billion and shareholder’ equity of $800 million to its Panamanian operations to create a presence in a very attractive economy and banking industry. It also further enhances the movement of Colombia’s biggest banks northwards as they seek regional expansion and diversification. Bancolombia becomes the largest bank in Panama and central America and is expected to double the contribution of international earnings to about 20% of total.

Announced in July 2012, this high-profile deal by CNOOC, the world’s largest independent oil exploration and production company, to acquire Nexen closed in February last year. The deal is the largest ever acquisition of a foreign target by a Chinese company and was three times oversubscribed, with over $18.1 billion of commitments received. Citi advised CNOOC, acting as sole coordinating bank on the $6 billion term loan facility, while Goldman Sachs and RBC advised Nexen.

Another year of volatility and underperformance in equity markets kept the majority of IPO candidates from emerging Europe on the sidelines in 2013. Of the few that did venture out, Turkey’s Pegasus Airlines caught the eye for its ability to negotiate a fragile market environment and resilient aftermarket performance.

In a lacklustre year for dealmaking in emerging Europe, the acquisition of Czech gas transmission firm Net4Gas by German insurer Allianz and the infrastructure arm of Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System stood out by virtue of its complexity and the competitiveness of the bidding process.

The head of Nigeria’s Dangote Industries, Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, signed a $3.3 billion deal on September 4 2013 to finance the building of the largest oil refinery in Nigeria.

Greece’s epic €206 billion private-sector debt restructuring last year was of importance not only for the average man or woman on Athens’s ancient streets, but also for the country at large, the eurozone and the entire global financial system.

International capital markets underwent a remarkable recovery last year as bond and equity markets soared, creating a fertile dealmaking environment that few had foreseen at the start of the year. By the end, an impressive volume and variety of capital raisings had hit the markets, highlighting a voracious appetite for risk and complexity that bankers were only too happy to satisfy. Even in M&A.

Science fiction has no place in the real world of bank capital, but when one bank goes boldly beyond where any other bank has gone before with a CoCo under CRD IV, there is perhaps something of a whiff of the future about it.

If Telefónica Deutschland’s €1.5 billion IPO in October last year gave hope to equity capital markets bankers that a resurgence in large European offerings was back on the cards, it was a smaller but perhaps more perfectly formed transaction in March that actually helped set a more ebullient tone.

Global capital markets underwent a remarkable recovery last year as bond and equity markets soared, creating a fertile dealmaking environment that few had foreseen at the start of the year. By the end, an impressive volume and variety of capital raisings had hit the markets, highlighting a voracious appetite for risk and complexity that bankers were only too happy to satisfy. Even in M&A.